A SAD Story
by my own patronus
Summary: "Tina surrounded herself in the dark.  But what she longed for more than anything was the light."  A story about Tina's struggle with Social Anxiety Disorder and depression.  Takes place before the beginning of Season 1 of Glee.
1. Cuts

Tina surrounded herself in the dark. But what she longed for more than anything was the light. She longed to join her classmates who walked down the halls laughing.

To hide her anxiety, she covered herself in a shroud of indifference. She distanced herself from those who ignored her so they would know that she didn't want to be with them any more than they wanted to be with her. But that couldn't be any further from the truth.

Tina was shy. Cripplingly so.

* * *

><p>At home, Tina pretended for her parents. She played the part of the perfect daughter. She smiled at them, thanked them, told them about how high school was hard, but fun. Told them all about her friends. <em>But don't worry<em>, she assured them. _Friends and socializing aren't getting in the way of my grades._

Her parents never doubted that. Because Tina's grades were excellent. How could they not be when all she did was study because she had no friends?

* * *

><p>Other than the dark costumey clothes that her parents only tolerated, Tina hid behind her voice. She wanted to be heard. She wanted to sing. But when she opened her mouth, she was petrified. Of all the judging eyes boring into her. Of what the others must think, of what they would say when she said the wrong thing. Not if, when.<p>

So she stuttered. It wasn't on purpose, originally. She'd stumbled over a passage that a teacher had asked her to read aloud. No one could remember her talking before, so when that happened they all assumed she had a stutter. It made things easier. Teachers didn't call on her as frequently because they assumed that she was ashamed of her stutter. And anyway, she excelled at all of their classes.

She tried to push people away so that she could claim responsibility for the fact that she had no friends. She didn't want to have to admit that they didn't like her. She wanted control.

* * *

><p>Tina often found herself creating dialogues in her head. Of conversations she might have with a friend about the homework that they'd been assigned in English. Or math. Or perhaps, a scenario in which she outshone everyone around her, and no one looked at her with those judgmental eyes. Because in her head, Tina was in control. She grasped onto these dialogues as lifelines. They were the only thing that made each and every day bearable.<p>

But dialogues weren't enough. She wanted someone to actually notice her.

Again and again, Tina walked down the halls, hoping that someone's eyes would alight on her and then smile. But all the recognition she received was a slushie to the face. Because she was different. And alone.

* * *

><p>Tina wasn't depressed. But she was desperate. And so stiflingly sad. Gloomy. But never depressed. She never thought of death as a better option. For as much as she hated her life here, she was more afraid of the possibility of nothing.<p>

Nothing, empty, alone. Those thoughts haunted Tina's dreams each and every night.

Tina saw the characters on TV. The ones who were depressed. They cut their wrists, and someone noticed. It seemed that cutting led to love. Acceptance.

But Tina was too scared to cut her wrists. She was afraid of the pain.

And then one day it was too much. Tina had spent her lunch alone. She had been slushied. Forced to talk in class, Tina had stuttered and answered a question wrong. All her classmates must have seen what a loser she really was.

She ran home, and in a desperate frenzy, she ran to the bathroom closet. She located the bag of single bladed razors, for once thankful for her mother's cheapness. Running to the basement, Tina located her father's hammer and slammed it down on the razor. It broke into two pieces, but that was not enough. She found a blade and, still blinded by her desperation, she began hacking away at the plastic that surrounded the small, sharp razor blade until it was mostly exposed. Calmly, Tina replaced the tools. She ripped off a strip of black electrical tape and wrapped it around the rough plastic. She ran back to her bathroom.

Tina locked the door and sat on the closed toilet seat. She took a deep breath, and pulled down the waistband of her skirt. She stared at the pale exposed skin. She took the razor and, pushing down ever so slightly, she ran it along the side of her hip, exactly where her underwear waistband would cover it.

It was a shallow cut that at first appeared invisible. Then, slowly, pinpricks of blood began to appear. It was a brighter shade of red than Tina had initially imagined.

There was no pain, not at first. Later, it would come. As the razor bore deeper into her skin. But for now, it was as if a cold shiver had run across her skin, nothing more.

Placidly, Tina ran her fingers over the small cut. She saw the blood stain her finger tips red. She grabbed some toilet paper, stuffed it under the waistband of her underwear, and pulled up her skirt. She turned to the sink and washed her hands.

Tina knew that she could stop at any time. She wasn't like one of those desperate girls on the television. She had control over her life. This was a choice she had made after a lot of logical thought. Anyway, it wasn't like she was suicidal. She was simply cutting her hip. It wasn't going to escalate into anything more.

Tina knew that she could stop at any time; she just didn't want to.

And it's not true what everyone says. The first cut is not the deepest. It took many weeks for Tina to really dig the razor in. The first few cuts didn't even leave any scars, not until Tina decided that she had to start reopening her old wounds because there just wasn't enough room. The area beneath the waistband of a pair of underwear is just not that big.

And still no one noticed.

* * *

><p>Now, the dialogues in Tina's head no longer consist of smiling friends, but a tragic situation in which Tina tearfully reveals to her friends that she has been cutting. A group surrounds her, engulfs her in a hug. The don't realize how minor this is. They don't know that Tina isn't actually depressed. They just think that she is suicidal and that they need to shower her with their love. Make her realize that life is actually worth living. Let her know that they want her there.<p>

But these friends only exist inside Tina's head.


	2. Scabs

After almost a month of cutting, Tina becomes reckless. In P.E., she lets the waistband of her shorts fall below the line of her highest cut. When she changes, her right hip faces toward the other girls, and more than occasionally are cuts painfully visible above or below her waistband. But still no one notices.

* * *

><p>Tina withdraws more into herself and her parents begin to notice.<p>

All that Tina sees, however, is that they doubt her. They don't trust her. They ask her questions about school, but seem to second guess her answers. They bother her about why they've never met any of her friends. So Tina snaps back at them and runs upstairs.

She stops doing her homework. She sits around catatonic for hours, simply staring at the page of a book or the screen of her computer.

Her parents continue to ask annoying, probing questions.

* * *

><p>In school, her English teacher asks her to stay behind after class. <em>Tina<em>, she says, _is something wrong? You seem so much more detached in class. I could usually count on you to be attentive, even if you never spoke. But now you seem to be slipping away. Your work isn't up to its usual standard._

_I'm fine_, Tina assures her. She walks away.

Because now, Tina's greatest fear is that she will be discovered. Before, all she wanted was the dream group of friends who made her feel special. But now they pose a threat. If someone finds out, they'll tell someone else. And then people will think that she is crazy or depressed or worse. They won't believe her when she tells them that she is in control.

Is she in control?

* * *

><p>The next day, Tina receives a note in first period class. It is a summons to the guidance office during her lunch period.<p>

The school counselor, a petite red-headed woman, explains that Tina's English teacher contacted her because she was worried that Tina was having trouble transitioning to high school. That she was working herself too hard and now it was taking a toll on her. Tina smiles and tells the woman that no, she is fine.

As Tina gets up to leave the room, she catches the counselor's eye for just a second. And she lets down all her guards, hoping that someone will sense that she wants to be noticed. But all the woman says is _Thank you for coming Tina. I hope your classes continue to go well_.

Tina doesn't know that after she leaves, the counselor sends out an email to all of her teachers, innocently asking for a report on her progress in their classes. Just to check if the transition to high school is going well for Tina.

The next evening, Tina's father says that he received a call from a Ms. Pillsbury at Tina's school. He says that she told him that she was worried about Tina. That Tina didn't seem to be socializing as much as the other students and her grades were beginning to drop.

Tina feels betrayed by the petite redhead.

He parents are worried. But she convinces them that she is fine. Still, Tina catches them watching her more closely after that.

And one day, Tina sees something that will help her. If everyone believes that she is fine, if she appears to be more like the rest of the kids in high school, then no one will worry any more.

So she puts her name down on the list. She can sing. No one pays attention to the Glee club. It's the perfect cover up.

At dinner, Tina's mother asks her what happened in school. And Tina says that she tried out for the glee club. Her father's brow creases, a worried and disapproving look coming over his face. _Don't worry_, she says, _it doesn't take up that much time. And it looks good on college applications_. He perks up.

Tina goes to the glee club practice after school the next day. She doesn't talk to the others there, students she'd only ever glanced at in the halls before. She walks straight to the bathroom when practice ends. In the safety of the stall, Tina pulls down the waistband to reveal the thin red gashes across her hip. She smiles at them. They are her weakness, her indulgent pleasure. As she runs the razor across an old scar, she allows one small gasp to escape her mouth.

And then she hears the other girl in the bathroom.

One of the girls from glee club. The black girl. She must have followed Tina in. When Tina exits the stall, the girl turns to her. _Are you okay? I thought I heard something..._ she asks.

Tina nods her head and washes her hands and leaves the girl behind in the bathroom.

But now Tina can't seem to shake this girl. When before all she wanted was a friend, now that she has someone who wants the same thing she can't run away fast enough.

And still the girl pursues. She and the boy from glee club, the one with the high voice, place their trays next to Tina's at lunch. She looks up in surprise, and they both smile at her. They are genuinely glad to see her. A few minutes later, the other boy, the one in the wheelchair, timidly rolls over and asks if he can join.

Soon, the other three are laughing and joking. Tina tries to smile, but has almost forgotten what it feels like. She excuses herself from the table before lunch ends and cuts open another gash on her hip.

But now when she looks down at the blood stains and the scars and the open gashes, she does not see the beauty that she used to. She is disgusted by what she has done. That was the work of a coward. And now, no matter if she continues or not, she will always be labeled as a cutter. The scars will always be there. And someone will always be there to assume the worst about her.

So the next day Tina leaves her razor at home.

She hides her scars in P.E.

She tries to become invisible again.

But now it is much harder since these three people, teammates, friends have decided to care about her. Mercedes and Kurt and Artie. They do not ignore her. They do not think she is invisible. They do not know yet to be worried about her, though, so they do not ask the questions that Tina now fears.

* * *

><p>And now the glee club has grown, and Tina is no longer invisible. Because the other students do not like that the glee club has come together. Because everyone there is hiding something, just like Tina. And glee helps them all.<p>

Tina's razor sits in a box on a bookshelf in her bedroom. She has not stopped cutting, but she doesn't cut as often. She rarely brings it to school with her, because at school she no longer needs to feel the pain in her side that reminds her that she controls her life. Because her life at school is no longer just her own. Now it is intertwined with Mercedes' and Kurt's and Artie's and even Rachel's and Finn's and everyone else's, too.

And then Tina tells them the truth about her, her second biggest secret. And she had to go home and mar her hip three more times, and watch the blood drip onto her hand. The blood that is still so red that Tina isn't even yet used to the color. But she goes back to school and the glee club supports her more than ever before. And so she begins to speak in class again, only this time without a stutter. And Tina's hip begins to heal. The cuts scab over and no new ones reopen them, not for two whole weeks.


	3. Scars

A time comes when Tina feels loved and doesn't remember why she started cutting, only remembers that she sometimes has to. Late at night when the loneliness begins to eat away at her insides, Tina may awaken. Those nights when she does, she locks herself in her bathroom and cuts her hip. But it no longer is something nice. It's something that she feels she must do. It has begun to define her. And during the nights when Tina does not wake up to the hollow feeling of being totally alone, she thrashes around dreaming terrible things that she can never remember in the morning.

But she only cuts at night now.

She no longer plays dialogues in her head of what her friends might be like because she now has friends. Her grades have picked back up and she has resumed doing work. She no longer devotes all her time to studying, though, because she has other people and other things to occupy her time. So she thinks that she is healed. The school counselor heard from her teachers that her grades have picked up too, and so she has stopped looking for the girl in the hallways. The girl who just hit a rough patch, but seems to be fine now.

Sometimes, Tina finds herself staring at the scars on her side, and she just wants them to disappear. And yet there are other times when Tina wants the whole world to see them.

* * *

><p>As Tina walks to class, she absently rubs a spot on her hip. Mercedes notices, but mentions nothing.<p>

Tina finds that when she is sitting alone in the back of class and is surrounded by other people, she can acutely feel every single cut in her skin. And when she is with the glee club, it is as if there is nothing hiding beneath her waistband. Sometimes, when Tina feels especially alone and thinks she may need to cut, she begins scratching. The scratching helps, it mimics the pain.

These new friends do not fulfill Tina's vision, though, and she soon becomes worried that they do not really like her. If they did, they would notice. She does not listen to the voice inside that says they would only know if she told them, that they only knew her in this state.

And so one day she is purposefully reckless. She wears a shirt that sometimes rises up and reveals a line of skin at her abdomen. She wears a low cotton skirt. She sits to the left of all the members of glee so that if they turned toward her, they would see her right hip.

Tina sits, and she rubs and she scratches the cuts. And still no one notices. As Mr. Schue begins explaining the lesson, Tina can't take it any more. She doesn't understand how everyone else throws their problems all over the place, but they never stop to look at Tina. For the first time, she feels alone among her new friends.

She lets out a quiet sob that she didn't even know she was holding in. Mercedes hears and turns to Tina, but the girl is already up and running. She grabs her backpack from the floor next to her chair and she bolts.

* * *

><p>Tina runs to the bathroom and locks the stall door. She opens her backpack and rummages around inside.<p>

A pair of scissors sits in her pencil case.

Tina sits and peels back the layers of clothes.

She has never used a blade so blunt and large for this before. But she needs to. She thought she had forgotten the desperation that initially prompted the cutting, but it has come back to her now.

Shaking slightly, Tina presses the blade into her skin. She pulls it in a long, straight line across her hip. It bleeds more than her usual cuts. And it stings. She has never felt so much pain from a cut before.

Tina breaks down in the stall as the bathroom door opens. She does not bother to be quiet. She does not bother to clean up the blood, put away the scissors, or adjust her clothes. She sits and cries.

_Tina? _asks a timid voice and Tina realizes that Mercedes has followed her into the bathroom. And although all she ever wanted was someone to tell her that she was loved, she is ashamed now that it may finally happen.

The door opens again and more people crowd into the bathroom, their voices echoing in the tiled room. _Is she okay? What's wrong? _Tina hears a jumble of voices, identifying Rachel, Quinn, and even Kurt. She wonders why they are all there, and then is suddenly overcome by a great sense of embarrassment because she is still sitting in the stall and weeping. She is sure that they are thinking awful things of her now, and she doesn't want to have to face them.

But now Mercedes is knocking at the stall door, begging her to come out and tell her what's wrong.

So Tina stands up.

She doesn't bother to put the scissors back in her bag.

She pulls up her skirt, ignoring the blood that has stained the surrounding skin and would stain the skirt if it wasn't black.

She picks up her bag and she opens the door.

For a moment, no one seems to notice. So Tina hands the scissors to Mercedes and walks to wash her hands in the sink, still sniffling slightly.

There was blood on Tina's hands and it now tints the water pink. It was on the handle of the scissors, and the blade, and Mercedes thinks a moment before asking Tina what it is.

Tina's eyes look down at the ground and she unconsciously rubs the inflamed and bloody patch on her right hip. Mercedes' eyes widen as she seems to make the connection.

Tina is unsure of what to do. Every cell in her body is screaming at her to run, to avoid at least some of the embarrassment. So she looks up at the door.

Standing in the doorway, not brazen enough to enter the girl's bathroom like Kurt was, are Mr. Schue, Artie, Finn, and the other glee club boys. The glee club director is in the front, and he, too, seems to have reached the same conclusion as Mercedes.

_Tina_, he says. Tina thinks that he looks as if he wants to come in, but knows that he cannot. Suddenly, she sees them all as being locked out of her life, not because they didn't like her, but because she wouldn't let them in.

She feels the tears come again, and falls back toward the sinks. _Why didn't you tell us anything? _Mercedes asks, coming toward her now and resting a hand on Tina's shoulder.

Tina doesn't know how to respond so she just shakes her head.

* * *

><p>Tina's parents send her to a psychiatrist. She is diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and depression. She is prescribed an antidepressant.<p>

She is not better, though. Sometimes, Tina is overcome with such a sadness and slowness, such a melancholy, and she cannot explain why. Very often, she can feel the tears building up behind her eyes, and she has to excuse herself until she is back under control.

* * *

><p>Tina threw out the razor after school the day she finally told everyone, but retrieved it almost instantly. She does not cut anymore, but cannot part with the blade that became her comfort for those weeks when she thought she had no one. Occasionally, Tina runs her hands over the cuts and feels a thrill of excitement, or anger, or sadness, or shame pass over her body.<p>

The scars have begun to fade. Some are raised white lines, while others are merely a dark discoloration in her skin.

But when she sings, it all goes away. Scars, worries, everything. Song is Tina's light on days when she feels especially dark.


End file.
